# Noriko Takaya

Noriko Takaya is the protagonist of Gunbuster, an anime series created by Gainax. Named after an animator [ja] at Studio Ghibli and voiced by Noriko Hidaka in Japanese and Kiane Chula King in English, the role significantly furthered the voice acting careers of both Noriko Hidaka and Kiane Chula King. Critics have praised Noriko's appearance and character arc of growing from an inexperienced pilot through hard work and will. She influenced the development of characters such as Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis Evangelion and popularized the Gainax Pose, an arm fold commonly seen in anime and other media.

## Conception

Gainax created Gunbuster as an ironic response to the financial losses of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, their previous film. The firm's staff designed the characters with Haruhiko Mikimoto, a character designer for Super Dimension Fortress Macross$^{:94}$$^{:32}$ and were influenced by Aim for the Ace!$^{:143–144}$ and Top Gun. Noriko Hidaka, who voiced Noriko, said that the concept of Gunbuster was taking the average of Aim for the Ace! and Top Gun. Gunbuster was the first anime to combine sports drama typically aimed towards female audiences with super robot action typically aimed at male audiences.$^{:48}$
Noriko's name comes from an animator named Noriko Takaya [ja],$^{:73}$ the wife of Gainax co-founder Shinji Higuchi. She worked at Studio Ghibli, where some of Gainax's staff previously worked with her, and worked on animations for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Akira. She also worked on Gunbuster.$^{:73}$ Noriko Hidaka voiced Noriko in the original Japanese version, the film Gunbuster vs. Diebuster, and in the video games, while Kiane Chula King voiced her in the English dub.

## Appearances
### Gunbuster

The character of Noriko Takaya first appears in the anime Gunbuster. Noriko is born on September 12, 2006, to Yuzo Takaya who is a space pilot and captain of the Luxion.$^{:73}$$^{:66}$$^{:56}$ In 2015, the Luxion is attacked by space monsters and Yuzo dies. Noriko joins the Okinawa Girls' Space Pilot High School to become a mecha pilot so she follow her father's footsteps.$^{:57}$$^{:6}$ At school, she is close friends with Kimiko Higuchi. She starts training to be a mecha pilot by jumping rope. She meets Kazumi Amano, becomes enamored with her, and treats her as an older sister. Then, Coach Koichiro Ohta tells the students piloting mecha to start their training. Noriko tries to pilot her mecha, but is very clumsy.$^{:74}$ Noriko is bullied by Reiko Kashiwara and her allies because she was selected to go to space. Noriko cries and approaches Ohta. Ohta tells her to train more so she does. One night, Reiko and Noriko have a mecha duel. Initially, the students thought Reiko would win, but Noriko performs an Inazuma Kick on Reiko's mecha and wins. Ohta, Kazumi, and Noriko later board a jet to go to the Silver Star orbital base.$^{:3–27}$
From the jet they see a Soviet mecha and work being done on the Exelion [ja]. They later meet the pilot of the Soviet mecha, Jung Freud, on the Silver Star. During training, Kazumi and Jung challenge each other while Noriko is looking for them. Kazumi, Noriko, and Ohta fly to the unidentified object approaching Neptune's orbit. Noriko finds out it is the Luxion. Knowing that her father was on the Luxion, Noriko goes to the Luxion and tries to look for her father, but finds that he is gone which emotionally affects Noriko. Ohta finds her and goes back with Kazumi to the Exelion, where they discovered it finished. At the Exelion opening ceremony, Noriko cries and runs out of the room where the ceremony is being held.$^{:28–45}$
Noriko overhears Kazumi claiming that Noriko is a liability. Noriko meets an American named Smith Toren. They initially do not get along but later on they begin to fall for each other. Noriko pairs up with him to fight but Toren is killed in battle, which weighs on her.$^{:10–29}$ During warp, the crew of the Exelion find space monsters, and Captain Tatsumi Tashiro orders a kamikaze run, but Noriko cries in a room as the battle goes on. Then she changes her mind to not cry and to fight with her own strength. She then pilots an unfinished Gunbuster and single-handedly fights the space monsters, stopping the space monsters from further attacking the Exelion$^{:32–55}$ and demonstrating that she grew to become a master pilot.$^{:166}$
Noriko, Kazumi, and Ohta return to Earth. Noriko and Kazumi graduate from the Okinawa Girls' Space Pilot High School and see Kimiko, who is now an adult with a child. Later, Noriko sees Kazumi and Ohta, now married, fighting with each other. Noriko goes to a beach to sunbathe and talks with Jung. She contemplates her recent experiences with Kimiko, Kazumi, and Ohta. Noriko and Kazumi later pilot Buster Machine 1 and Buster Machine 2, respectively. They fly the Buster Machines into space with the Exelion. As they pass Jupiter2, they find space monsters. Kazumi cries at the thought of losing Ohta because he was diagnosed with space radiation syndrome and has less than six months to live and due to time dilation for Noriko and Kazumi they will not get back before then. Noriko snaps Kazumi out of crying and backing out, and they combine their Buster Machines into Gunbuster. After working together to defeat the space monsters by the Exelion's explosion, they return to Earth, and Kazumi cries when she finds Ohta alive. Noriko tries not to cry, so she runs out.
In the last episode, Noriko, Kazumi, and Jung are on the Eltreum [ja]. They are in a fleet to deliver Buster Machine 3, a black hole bomb with Jupiter condensed in it. The fleet protects the bomb from space monsters before detonation. Noriko and Kazumi go in Buster Machine 3 to use Gunbuster's main degeneracy reactor to start the detonation. They fly out quickly and find themselves above Earth on July 6, 14,292 where they see a "WELCOME HOMƎ!" message on the Earth. Noriko and Kazumi leave the Gunbuster and fall back to Earth.

### Other appearances

In the Science Lessons, Noriko, Kazumi, and Ohta appear as chibi versions of themselves discussing the science behind concepts in Gunbuster, such as the speed of light. In later episodes, the chibi versions become more expressive but slimmer. Noriko's expressions in the Science Lessons are more exaggerated than in the main Gunbuster series, including the appearance of a V-shaped mouth when she is scared. In the sequel OVA, Diebuster, the protagonist, Nono, admires Noriko's legacy and wishes to be like her. Nono refers to Noriko as Nono-Riri, because her memory of Noriko is disorganized so she mutters the syllables of her name. The last episode of Diebuster shows Noriko and Kazumi descending to Earth from the Earth's point of view.
Bandai published two volumes of Comic Gunbuster in 1989 and 1991. These volumes show Noriko in various situations such as chibi and in four panel strips. Kabocha's manga adaptation of Gunbuster follows the anime with some slight differences.$^{:182–193}$$^{:16–19}$$^{:39}$ Noriko has also appeared in some video games, such as the video games based on Gunbuster, the games in the Super Robot Wars series, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Eva and Good Friends, and Neon Genesis Evangelion: Battle Orchestra.

## Characterization and themes

In Gunbuster, Noriko shows determination in her rigorous training and striving for excellence through "hard work and guts". Dan Casey, a contributor to Nerdist, states that she starts the story as a clumsy adolescent. Tamaki Saitō and Hiroki Azuma say that under the rigorous training of her coach she becomes a master pilot.$^{:166}$ Via Erhard, a writer for Game Rant, states that although she is generally calm, she ruthlessly kills her enemies. An editor for Anime News Network notes that throughout the story, Noriko has moments of doubting herself, but as she becomes a master, she understands that her position carries a lot of weight.
Noriko admires Kazumi and looks up to her as if she was her older sister and praises Kazumi's skill in operating mecha, but Kazumi says it was her hard work. Zach Godin, a contributor to Crunchyroll News, states that Kazumi supports Noriko throughout Gunbuster despite being her senior. Peter Laliberte of MAHQ wrote that Kazumi was initially portrayed as elegant but wanted to back out because of the possibility of losing Ohta, causing Noriko to tell her to snap out of this behavior and work together to stop the space monsters. Tamaki Saitō and Hiroki Azuma note that Noriko and Kazumi could be seen as phallic mothers, women who have a sense of authority and perfection.$^{:166,220}$
Loss and trauma are defining themes in Gunbuster and are prominent in Noriko through traveling at lightspeed and consequently losing touch with the world she knew and dealing with unresolved trauma. Loss because of traveling at lightspeed causes someone to think of time differently and can become emotionally difficult for the person, as Noriko's growth showed. According to Anime News Network, because of time dilation, fighting to protect Earth and then coming back to see it significantly changed can make one feel as though they are not part of the life those they care about. Dev Tugnait, a writer for DualShockers, notes that losing a friend, Kimiko Higuchi, also caused Noriko to focus on mastering piloting Gunbuster and be willing to sacrifice everything for Earth's sake.
Noriko also shows behaviors of an otaku, as Gainax was founded by animators who enjoyed anime and became professionals. Lawrence Eng, an otaku scholar, said that Gunbuster could have been the earliest anime with a character who demonstrates otaku behavior, as Kazumi teases Noriko "about her knowledge of anime and science fiction." This anime was also one of the first anime released in the United States to keep its Japanese-language track,$^{:88}$ with an English dub not being released until 2022. Western viewers learned about the word otaku through this anime. In the main Gunbuster series, Noriko's otaku behavior is hinted at, but the Science Lessons episodes show her otaku behavior more clearly. In a later Science Lessons episode, Noriko is shown to be a fan of Sailor Moon. The Film Comic books published by Bandai in 1988 and 1989 describe Noriko's hobbies as building plastic model kits$^{:73}$ and watching past anime and television shows with special effects.$^{:66}$

## Reception and cultural impact

Tamaki Saitō, Hiroki Azuma, and Patrick Galbraith, a professor at Senshu University, among others, have described Noriko as having a kawaii appearance.$^{:167}$$^{:238}$$^{:115}$ Ethan Supovitz and Daniel Kurland, writers for Comic Book Resources, praised her character arc for growing from an inexperienced pilot to a master one through hard work and determination. Max Covill, a writer for Polygon, wrote that the struggles Noriko had to go through make her into a heroine, including the Rocky-style training and an awareness of time dilation every time she goes to space up until the end of Gunbuster, made it "hard to imagine anyone not tearing up at the end." In addition, Via Erhard notes that Noriko is one of the most merciless female characters with one of the highest kill counts because of her determination in battle. Fullmetal Alchemist author Hiromu Arakawa stated that she was affected by time slipping away from Noriko because of time dilation, especially at the concept of Kimiko Higuchi marrying and having a child on Earth in a short amount of time for Noriko in space. She believed the concept of Noriko returning after about 12,000 years in space unthinkable.
Noriko contributed to the phenomenon of paring a giant robot with a beautiful girl. Toshio Okada, the writer of Gunbuster,$^{:94}$$^{:94}$ stated that he thought such a pairing is necessary for success in media, because he believed that people find "catharsis in the fighting of the weak."$^{:130–131}$$^{:127,134}$ She also contributed to the trope known as the "beautiful fighting girl" and laid the foundation for characterization of girls perceived to be lovable and moe in the 1990s. Specifically, the term moeru, meaning "to love", would be applied to such characters. Regarding this term, Tamaki Saitō states, "to love an anime is, ... to love (moeru) the beautiful girls in anime. An anime creator is born from the experience of moe as a trauma, and the next generation of anime fans finds moe in the heroines he creates."$^{:166–167}$ Noriko is also remembered for popularizing the Gainax Pose, an arm fold typically done with a scowl or authoritative look. Max Covill notes that when Noriko crosses her arms, she plans to cause her enemy significant trouble. The Gainax Pose is typically made at a turning point in an anime that needs a compelling image to set the scene. Later series, both created by Gainax such as Diebuster and Gurren Lagann, and created by others such as Kill la Kill and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, would use this pose, and it has appeared in other media as well.
Noriko's character influenced Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Simon of Gurren Lagann. Noriko's early portrayal in Gunbuster influenced Shinji's portrayals in Neon Genesis Evangelion, as her character arc in the first four episodes shows that her failures and losses compound when she has to deal with larger threats. Noriko's moments of self-doubt and anxiety would contribute to the development of Shinji. In Gurren Lagann, as Noriko was trained by Ohta, Simon grows under the training of Kamina and becomes a powerful pilot. Noriko has had merchandise of her released many times since Gunbuster was released. General Products, an anime goods store, was selling Noriko HG and Noriko EX figures as of April 1990.$^{:32}$ She also had keyrings, art prints, and a photographic bromide with her and three other characters. In 2004, Kotobukiya Co., Ltd. [ja] released a 1/6 scale PVC figure of Noriko. In 2006, Kaiyodo released a 22 cm (8+1⁄2 in) tall figure of her sculpted by Bome. In 2012, CM's Corporation [ja] released a 20 cm (8 in) tall Gutto-Kuru figure of her. In June 2024, Good Smile Company released a Nendoroid of her sculpted by Udono Kazuyoshi.